This is a meetup group for people in the Philadelphia area who are concerned with the current political turmoil in America, but who also feel that the prevailing liberal-vs-conservative political paradigm is unnecessarily limiting our ability to think rationally about politics & search for policy solutions. This group is also for people who think that extremism & political polarization are serious problems that need to be addressed.

"Political Agnosticism" is a term I came up with back in 2015 to represent a non-dogmatic approach to politics that acknowledges both uncertainty and the validity of multiple perspectives, and looks for practical solutions without worrying about allegiance to an overarching political ideology. The purpose of this agnostic & free-thinking approach is to avoid treating politics as a "culture war" based on group identities or a clash of "political religions" based more on devotion to a party than knowledge of the issues. Instead, when we cover a political issue, we look at what experts in various disciplines know about it, note the tradeoffs between different policy approaches, and then look at potential solutions that encompass everything we've learned. <br>

The only political values that are prerequisites for members are a belief in civility & tolerance towards those we disagree with, a belief in traditional civil liberties like the freedom of speech, freedom of thought, and freedom of association, and respect for institutional norms like separation of church & state, academic freedom, press freedom, government transparency, and due process. These principles of an "open society" form the preconditions for the existence of a non-partisan political forum like ours. <br>

We've recently become affiliated as an independent salon of the Burke-Paine Society (BPS), a national organization that takes its name from Edmund Burke & Thomas Paine, two Enlightenment-era political thinkers that exemplify the conservative & progressive strands of classical liberalism. The BPS is based on 4 core values - Inclusiveness, Empathy, Intellectual Curiosity, Humility - and is committed to 3 objectives: (1) rebuild cross-partisan trust, (2) redefine the national identity, (3) ignite a political renaissance. To learn more, visit their website: https://www.burkepainesociety.org/

Our general approach to politics is based on a concept we've borrowed from another organization, the Circle of Reason, called "pluralistic rationalism" – i.e. a personal commitment to reasoning, regardless of one's worldview. We start by assuming that reasonable people can differ in their cores values, whether it's framed as a preference for freedom vs security, tradition vs progress, individualism vs communitarianism, meritocracy vs egalitarianism, etc. However, this approach is also premised on the belief that we should all commit to following the rules of logic & evidence-based reasoning. "Pluralistic Rationalism" is based on 3 tenets that are complementary to the core values of BPS - they are: Factualism, Skepticism & Emotional Mastery. To learn more about "pluralistic rationalism", see the Circle of Reason's website: http://www.circleofreason.org/

We are committed to creating a space for non-partisan political discussion based on intellectual honesty, mutual respect & civility. That means adopting the conversational principles of charity & good faith, avoiding name-calling, and trying to understand the best arguments that can be made for each side. <br>

The goals for this meetup group are as follows: <br> <br>(1) We try to understand why people - including ourselves - are predisposed by inherent psychological traits, cultural milieu & life experiences to have different moral intuitions & political orientations. We generally use a mix of the Big Five personality traits, Jonathan Haidt's Moral Foundations Theory & Geert Hofstede's Cultural Dimensions Theory. <br> <br>(2) We look at moral philosophy to try to better understand how moral axioms logically connect to one another and form ethical systems like deontological ethics, utilitarianism, and contractarianism. We examine how these ethical systems form the basis for political philosophy, legal philosophy, and normative theories in the social sciences. <br> <br>(3) We try to increase our level of rationality by learning how to spot logical fallacies, cognitive biases, flawed statistics, and irrational forms of thought like conspiracy theories & moral panics. <br> <br>(4) We try to educate members on both the fundamentals and the latest research from the social sciences, and we discuss how this relates to current events & trending political topics. Aside from looking at academic research, a lot of our reading material comes from data/explainer journalism sites, econ & policy blogs, as well as the major public intellectuals & pundits from across the political spectrum. <br> <br>(5) We try to imagine alternative types of political & economic systems that could provide better outcomes for the future based on both theory & empirical data. This often involves looking at various "maps of the policy landscape" like the Cato & Fraser Institutes' Human Freedom Index, SPI's Social Progress Index, the Economist's Democracy Index, the UN World Happiness Report, and others. <br> <br>(6) As part of our effort to break away from the narrow range of ideas represented by the two major political parties, we often look at constellations of ideas that could be described as syncretic, contrarian or heterodox. This often involves looking at ideas emerging from various blogosphere niches like market urbanism, civic hacking, ecomodernism, effective altruism, the rationalist & post-rationalist communities, and the so-called "Intellectual Dark Web". <br> <br>(7) In order to do our part combatting political polarization, we borrow ideas from a range of organizations that are currently working on enabling mutual understanding & civil dialogue, such as Mark Beall's Burke-Paine Society, Frank Burton's Circle of Reason, David Blankenhorn's Better Angels project, Liz Joyner's Village Square, Joan Blades' Living Room Conversations, Tim Dixon & Gemma Mortensen's More In Common project, Charles Wheelan's Centrist Project (now called "Unite America"), and others. <br>